Alright guys, we're gonna hang out here for a couple days while I do a detailed check of everyone's characters to make sure there are no mistakes. Also, if you guys want to connect your characters feel free. The more connected the players are the better. I'd recommend coordinating spell selection and skill selections now that you know who you're playing with. You can change your character up until the point we start playing.

Sitting in the dingy tavern in Bladswell did not suit her well at all. The carriage ride from Caliphas had been cold and drafty the whole way,
and she was trying to relax, not listen to the driveling innkeeper.
The man with the mouth only half filled with teeth continued, "And you will never geuss why they even made Ravengro! No, you'd never geuss that they'd made it a prison hole for the worst of the worst!"

A prison town! The only voice there will be screams, I am sure. B'yelka thought about how this country was growing more and more unpleasant by the minute. Her thoughts were interrupted by the barkeep's voice.

[b]M'lady, if'n ya need more infermation." His hand fairly twitched for the silver he supposed was coming his way.

"No, you have told me quite enough about Ravengro" And your breath makes it so much more... visceral. The young lady smoothed the rich dark fabric of her skirt and asked in a very sweet voice, "Are there any other travellers here in the inn headed to Ravengro?"

"Aye, m'Lady if'n I find out anything, I will let you know right off!" The pudgy man shuffled away, presumably to refill her wine.

B'yelka surveyed the room and frowned, Is this Ustalav? I should have stayed in Caliphas if anything. How dismal... Regardless of how she felt, she knew to make a strong impression. Sitting up straight she practiced her smile. A hard thing this is becoming...

I'd prefer to save in-character stuff for gameplay, for expediencies' sake. Great RP though :)

Edit:Not seeing any mistakes in B'Yelka except that you forgot the last few words of your Chance Savior trait. I know that our Witch has the Slumber hex with a good DC, so you may want to select a spell other than Sleep. Up to you.

Weapons and Tactics:
Scourge: Stand behind the big guy and try to pull legs out from under bad guys. She is not good at it, but as she also doesn't wear armor, she is not planning on getting up close and personal with anyone. She has 8 rounds of Bard Performance per day and Lingering Performance to make it seem like a lot more than that.

Furture plans:
B'yelka will be staying pure Bard; she will get better and better at party support. Her spells will get more diversity but for now, she has what she has. Expect Blistering Invective in the near future.

Some info to help any tie-ins: B'yelka is a Chelish Diva that has been forced to flee her home town due to 'contract disputes'. She could really use a bodyguard, or at least a travel companion to keep the weirdos at bay!

Great to be in the party! I see a few holdovers on Janos' sheet that I will correct soon.

Overall, Janos will be your undead tracker and killer. He has Witch as his favored class from his background but I don't intend on ever taking a level in it. What it does do is allow him to use both Witch and Ranger spell items.

Looks like we have a well balanced group. With the Witch and Alchemist, we have arcane well covered and between a Bard, Ranger and Inquistor we can do the healing thing fairly well. We don't have a heavy armor person, but Janos can fill the role decently. We just have to kill things rather than let them hang around. And we have some very skillful classes so that should hardly be a problem.

Janos may start off initially paranoid gIven his past, but expect him to become much more trusting after we survive a scrape together.

Hi everyone! Really pleased to get selected for this one, CC has been of interest to me for a good while now.

As for Anton, I will go over everything with a fine tooth comb later today, possibly reallocate one or two skill points for example. I am planning on maxing out most of the social skills however. As a follower of Desna, Anton has walked halfway around the region already and tried to make a few friends and contacts along the way. I see his primary roles as a party face alongside B'yelka and ranged support as I am building him as a full archer using judgements and bane to keep pace with the full BAB classes. Secondly, I will happily use my spells, teamwork feats and wands to offer healing and buffing.

Since we are in the discussion thread though... As a full archer type character is it possible to make the heavy repeating crossbow worth it? There are numerous threads on this and my gut feeling without 3rd party or 3.5 material is no.

Tibideau, not sure how much you have played, especially with a Witch, but I thought I would give you a heads up. I played a Witch in a RL campaign and while I absolutely love the class, undead were the most frustrating encounters for me. Lots of a Witch's abilities don't work on undead as they are mindless. I don't want to tell you how to play or discourage you because I think you've made good choices and I like the background but I did want to give you a heads up about that. While I would normally say just embrace it and let us deal with the undead, in Carrion Crown it might come up often so make sure you have a plan if thing are immune. Misfortune is probably a great place to start so you already have that. Again, just sharing my experience.

As for in combat posting, I normally include a spoiler like the one below at the end of my posts - would that suit you Jelani? I can certainly pull the AC and HP out of it and put them in the Round Header if that's your preference.

As far as party roll is concerned, I figure Dantrian to probably be in the front more often than not. His mutagen makes him fairly flexible in this regard though. Once he gets claws and a bite attack, he'll definitely favor melee whenever his mutagen is in effect.

Should we find any splash weapons, especially holy water for when we inevitably meet some grumpy undead, Dantrian will be especially good with that kind of weapon. He already has 4 bombs per day as well as some alchemist's fire and acid flasks. I'll do my best not to splash any of you =P

Dantrian starts out with Brew Potion, so I can make CLW potions for us on the cheap if we get some free days early on and we have the gps.

I'm about to head out for the day but I'll take a look at all the other aliases when I get home this evening. Thanks again!

Hey Dantarian. If you're building you're alchemist as a frontliner, have you considered the vivisectionist archetype that gives you sneak attack progression instead of bombs? I'm playing an alchemist with this build focussing on feral mutagens in another game and he's doing really well so far. Just a thought.

I liked Anton's name/description summary, so I stole it. No, you can't have it back. :p

Doing some reading I am thinking the party looks like it will mesh well; there are subtle connections between the characters. For example Tib's noble background fits with B'yelka's; a preacher of Desna traveling with a woman that is going to be looking for a direction in life... Looks great so far!

Dantarian, how likely do you think that we know each other, or are at least traveling together? After all, we are both Chelish. Does anyone see any other direct connections for party members?

Also I was thinking of swapping Lingering Performance for Weapon Finesse so I can be more directly productive in a fight. Any thoughts?

Skills are detailed in my alias crunch, but suffice to say that Drosil is set up to be a scout when needed (stealth, darkvision, etc.), is not completely useless in social situations (not quite as good as B'yelka, but passable), and will of course be equipped to overcome any locks and traps we come across.

Being a fetchling, Drosil is used to prejudice causing a lot of tension in the people around him, so he generally keeps mostly to himself. After the group has been together for a while, though, I'd imagine he'll loosen up a bit.

In general, Drosil will be keeping to the shadows so that he's only a Stealth check away from being able to land a sneak attack. I fully expect that he'll be on the front lines, perhaps after a ranged sneak attack opener, using acrobatics for favorable positioning (flanking for additional sneak attack damage, etc.) when it's practical.

@B'yelka: If you plan on concentrating on singing and spells (as evidenced by your Str & AC), I'd say stick with Lingering Performance - no sense in getting in harm's way unnecessarily, and you can be more frugal with your performance rounds per day, if necessary - perform one round, stop for two, repeat as needed. The only caveat to that would be that, if your scorpion whip is finesse-able, you could get Weapon Finesse and attack from behind the nearest front-liner while continuing to perform as a free action.

Drosil, that was exactly my intent... I am just debating taking Finesse now, or at 3rd. :)

If you're going to get Weapon Finesse anyway, then I'd say go ahead and take it now - you don't have a ton of spells at the moment, so you'll likely be using your whip quite a bit. - EDIT: Jelani's suggestion below is, I think, the best compromise.

Putting something like this in the Gender line or your alias is very helpful for me (and you). Please everyone do that.

Drosil wrote:

In general, Drosil will be keeping to the shadows so that he's only a Stealth check away from being able to land a sneak attack. I fully expect that he'll be on the front lines, perhaps after a ranged sneak attack opener, using acrobatics for favorable positioning (flanking for additional sneak attack damage, etc.) when it's practical.

Just so you know, I use a strict RAW interpretation of the stealth rules. Which means you can't just go rolling stealth willy-nilly and expect to be hidden. You need cover or concealment for stealth to hide you from sight. Other than that it just makes you quiet. In other words, if you want to hide, ask me first if there is somewhere to hide.

Edit:Though with your fetchling racial trait it shouldn't be too bad.

B'Yelka - Why not take Weapon Finesse and Lingering Performance at level one, and then take Prodigy at level 3? You already have a really good Perform check without the +2, the low DCs for the first two levels shouldn't be too difficult for her.

RE: Vivisectionist - I have looked at it before, but I don't believe my eventual levels in Master Chymist would continue the SA progression. I'd basically have 1/2 powered SA and 1/2 powered crappy bombs since Master Chymist would be improving a class feature I would no longer technically have. Even if that's not the case, I think I still prefer the versatility the bombs would afford.

RE: Lingering Performance vs Weapon Finesse - at levels 1-3, normally I would suggest taking lingering performance as I think you'd get more mileage out of it, but in this case we're talking about shifting you from a penalty to hit (due to the 8 strength) to a bonus. I'd say go with weapon finesse at this stage in light of that. EDIT - Jelani's suggestion is even better =)

@Janos - are you planning on multiclassing into witch? I ask because it's listed at the top of your character sheet as your favored class. It makes loads of sense with his backstory since he was raised by one, but I was just curious if that's intentional or perhaps a copy/paste error. =)

@B'yelka - do you want us to both already be familiar with one another or do you think it'd be more fun if we had encountered one another before but only one of us remembered it? Then again, Dantrian's accident was nearly a decade ago - if they'd met before hand B'yelka would have only been 8 years old at the most. Would her parents have perhaps paid for a tutor in her youth? I kind of like that idea actually. Whatcha think?

In general, Drosil will be keeping to the shadows so that he's only a Stealth check away from being able to land a sneak attack. I fully expect that he'll be on the front lines, perhaps after a ranged sneak attack opener, using acrobatics for favorable positioning (flanking for additional sneak attack damage, etc.) when it's practical.

Just so you know, I use a strict RAW interpretation of the stealth rules. Which means you can't just go rolling stealth willy-nilly and expect to be hidden. You need cover or concealment for stealth to hide you from sight. Other than that it just makes you quiet. In other words, if you want to hide, ask me first if there is somewhere to hide.

I just wanted to confirm - if I'm keeping to the shadows (dim light or darker), that would provide concealment (50% for both, in Drosil's case, from Shadow Blending) from anyone without darkvision, correct? If that's the case, then would a Stealth check would be warranted, or do I need to have something to hide behind? Not trying to be a pain, just want to make sure I understand so I don't slow things down later.

"@Janos - are you planning on multiclassing into witch? I ask because it's listed at the top of your character sheet as your favored class. It makes loads of sense with his backstory since he was raised by one, but I was just curious if that's intentional or perhaps a copy/paste error. =)"

His half-elf alternate racial trait lets him use spell trigger items as if he were a first level witch. That's the reasoning.

Ah another thing. This game tracks something called Trust Points. It's one score for the whole party, starting at 20. It will be modified by your in-game actions. If it should reach 0, you will be run out of town by an angry torch bearing mob, and will have essentially 'lost' the campaign. Higher numbers hold other benefits.

@Anton - if you're willing, I could easily update Drosil's backstory to have Lorrimor take him to Magnimar when he found him on the streets - justification is easy, in that he wouldn't have wanted Drosil to grow up amidst the prejudices that stranded him without his own kind.

I'm thinking they could have met on the streets (or in the orphanage, perhaps) and become friends, grown up together, getting into mischief, doing those things boys do. Just looking at your stats, I'm thinking you could have provided some wisdom for keeping me out of trouble, and I could have talked our way out of any sticky situations we found ourselves in...

Thanks for the tips Janos. I've played a wizard IRL but not a witch, and I was enchantment focused so I was definitely quite frustrated with undead. I am planning to take Cackle at level 2 to make Misfortune more powerful. I'm also going to prepare Summon Monster a lot to fight undead, as well as having a light crossbow to waste those bastards. I will get my gear listed on my profile shortly.

@B'yelka: I'm sure Tibideau would have a conniption upon meeting an opera star, and they would have similar tastes based on their upbringings.

Yeah, no levels in Witch for Janos. His mentor already tried that and it didn't work. The favored class thing (Arcane Training Racial Trait) was helpful in the last campaign he was in where we didn't have an arcane caster. It's giving up a lot and we do have a Witch in the party, but I tend to like its flavor and shows that he was really schooled in being a Witch, despite not being able to do it. Failed Apprentice trait also provides some of that flavor.

@Tibideau: Sounds like a good plan.

How are we on skills? Do I need to shift anything for Janos?

Anyone from the area and spending time in the swamps or having need of a hedge witch healer, could know Janos or his mentor.

@ Dan: Yes, B'yelka's parents would have paid exorbiant sums of money to educate their prodigy. Unfortunately, she only cared about the singing and music parts ;) Math? Engineering? Those are for the people that build the opera houses. It the Diva the makes the Opera. Does that sound good? I am just imagining Dantarian's frustration with the little diva ;) And just imagine her trying to make good (now) on all of Dan's work. That sounds like a good angle to me. B'yelka gets a favored language; let me check you languages and take one that you could have taught her.

@ Tibideau: Then we shall meet on the road ;) Do you prefer your Opera in Azlanti, or in the plain tongue? We are going to have to make up stars and composers of old to 'fill in' our fireside chats. lol

@ Everyone... imagine our surprise when we all find out that our lives had a double-common thread: Prof L tied us together in prepration for his own death. Why would he do that?

@ Jelani: I was looking at Silken Ceremonial Armor. Can we reskin it so that her corseted gown (Courtier's Outfit) counts for the same +1 Armor Bonus?

*EDIT* In regards to feats I took Weapon Finesse, and dropped Lingering Performance. I thought about Jelani's suggestion but decided that B'yelka *is* her stage persona and I wanted to reflect that by maintaining those at ridiculous levels. :)

**EDIT** Dantarian, I took Azlanti and dropped Infernal. Looks like we know who taught her to understand the words she was learning!

@Drosil. I am yet to read through everyone’s information unfortunately but having us meet eachother in the orphanage certainly seems like a good idea to me, we’re about the same age as well. Anton has been there since he was six so he certainly would have welcomed a friend/brother and with our skills in diplomacy we are both amiable enough to get on with most people. The reason I can see Anton getting into mischief is that raised in a caravan to follow Desna, he has a terrible wanderlust and being effectively confined within the orphanage (or even within the city) would not have sat well with him. He has a principle that it is important, wherever possible, to experience or see something new every day.

It’s quite important that Anton doesn’t know it was Lorrimor that helped him. Whether Lorrimor knew the Klasnic family or not and whether that comes into the game is up to the GM really. I just like to leave some elements deliberately vague so they can be integrated into the sotry if the GM wishes.

I may drop a skill point from somewhere to add into stealth and scout with you. The major drawback with that is a lack of darkvision.... not sure about that yet.

One question, have you considered some skills in use magic device, even if it’s just to get yourself a wand of invisibility or silence later on?
@Tibideau. As an archer, I’d like to be like Hawkeye/Batman and always have the right tool for the job to bypass DR etc. Although I have monster lore to help me identify the weaknesses of creatures, I don’t really have the skill points to invest in all knowledges. I’m even considering dropping monster lore because of this and focussing more on stealth and survival if I can but I’m not sure there is an archetype where I can replace both teamwork feats and monster lore. Sooooo... given that I’m likely to be standing at the back with you, if you would be so kind as to occasionally just whisper “Anton, silver arrow on this one, mate.” I’d be really grateful lol.

@B’yelka. No suggestions from me. Unless I can find a way of boosting my diplomacy (such as the infiltrator archetype), I may start to focus more on intimidate with the stern gaze ability.

@Janos/Dan. Looks like you guys are our front line. Anton can swing a Morningstar well enough if he is backed into a corner but I’ll mostly be looking to support you. Dan, in other games I have seen the GM houserule that Master Chymist progresses sneak attack instead of bombs if you have taken the vivisectionist archetype. It’s logical imho but of course it’s a GM call and can cause a little bit of extra work if you manage your character through something like Hero Lab. But yes, if that’s not possible it isn’t worth it, as you rightly say you end up with both mediocre bombs and SA.

Dantrian - If you'd rather than have sneak attack than bombs, I'm fine with you taking Vivsectionist and houseruling Master Chymist to advance sneak at the same rate it normally would bombs. Doesn't matter to me either way. Anton makes the valid point that you and Janos are gonna be in the front most of the time by the looks of things.

Everybody - I'm basically always cool with re-skinning something however you like, as long as the mechanics don't change and it's somewhat realistic relative to the mechanical effect. (Ie no reskinning your dagger as a 10' long blade. But you could reskin magic missiles to look like ghostly skulls or something.) Just ask first here in discussion, I'll likely say yes.

Also, having more than two people with the same knowledges is probably a waste of skill points that could be used elsewhere. There should be enough skill points and class skills floating around this party for you guys to cover every single knowledge there is at least once, with doubling up on the important ones in case of a bad roll.

Finally, I think I'm going to post the opener in gameplay tonight before I go to bed. That gives people about six hours to work on stuff if they see this, if not we can just go with the light connections people have established and then improv the rest in character. Feel free to keep discussing it here in OOC after the game starts.

@Drosil. I am yet to read through everyone’s information unfortunately but having us meet eachother in the orphanage certainly seems like a good idea to me, we’re about the same age as well. Anton has been there since he was six so he certainly would have welcomed a friend/brother and with our skills in diplomacy we are both amiable enough to get on with most people. The reason I can see Anton getting into mischief is that raised in a caravan to follow Desna, he has a terrible wanderlust and being effectively confined within the orphanage (or even within the city) would not have sat well with him. He has a principle that it is important, wherever possible, to experience or see something new every day.

Let's do that then. I'll update my history here shortly.

Anton Klasnic wrote:

I may drop a skill point from somewhere to add into stealth and scout with you. The major drawback with that is a lack of darkvision.... not sure about that yet.

Yeah, I think you'd be better off leaving it the way it is. While it would be nice to have some company, I think I'll be uniquely qualified to do some stealthy scouting with the way Jelani's going to be handling Stealth w/concealment.

Anton Klasnic wrote:

One question, have you considered some skills in use magic device, even if it’s just to get yourself a wand of invisibility or silence later on?

I hadn't, actually - not because of any particular dislike of the idea, but because the skills I ended up choosing just seemed to fit the character better. Also, I have a terrible habit of not using charged magic items when they're available - what if I use it now and don't have that charge later when I really need it?? :-P

That said, if anyone has a suggestion of a skill I took that they feel I wouldn't really need, I'm more than willing to take suggestions. Likewise, if it would be helpful for me to spend points in Knowledge skills (Dungeoneering and Local are class skills, and I get a +1 to Local and Nature from race), I could do that as well.

@ Anton - I will certainly share my knowledge skillz. I have another idea for fighting the undead, too. I'm planning on having Guidance prepared every day, and you could exchange Guidance for Disrupt Undead on your spell list if you wanted.

Jelani, I need to make some last minute adjustments to my character but I can't do so for about the next 4 hours (when I get home from work). Suffice to say it is just some tweaks to skills and taking disrupt undead as Tib suggests.

One slightly bigger adjustment is taking both the heretic and peracher archetypes as they don't overlap and replace monster lore and the teamwork feas. Heretic will help me with my face role as I get a big boost to bluff and I can provide some backup to Drosil when in stealth mode. I know he isn't likely to need it but I live by the rule 'don't split the party, or at least if you do split the party, have backup!'

Story-wise this still fits my guy. He has the liberation domain and as much as travel is his first love, he hates to see people oppressed and controlled (due to what happened to his parents) which isn't really Desna's main concern but definitely something close to his heart which. This why he doesn't follow all of the more traditional tenets of the faith.

Has you character ever been in a fight for their life? Have they ever killed someone? If so why? How does your character feel about taking prisoners once a fight has broken out (if someone attacks you are they fair game for death)?

You don't have to type out answers to these, just think about them. A lot of times people who have been playing for a while end up playing first level characters who are way too jaded and experienced for what their character sheet indicates. In a kick the door down dungeon crawl or something that's not a big deal, but since this is a horror game it will be a lot more scary and horrible if the PCs are mentally closer to normal people than stone cold killer adventuring experts. Not saying you have to be stupid, just encouraging people to have fun with getting into character.

As is my newb-ness. Is it possible to change the poster after the fact?

Only if you catch it within the first hour. Posts are editable within that time frame, but after 1 hour, they are there FOREVER. =P

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I dig the idea of Dantrian having served as B'yelka's math and linguistics tutor nearly a decade ago. I look forward to his surprise in 1) meeting her again to being with and 2) when he learns that her silly and fanciful dreams of being a singer actually paid off and that she didn't need math all that much after all =)

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Looked at vivisectionist again and discovered that the archetype only gives up bombs and not Throw Anything as well. In light of that, his splash weapons (holy water, I'm looking at you!) will still get his intelligence modifier added to both the direct hit and the splash damage, which is nice. So maybe I will take the archetype after all.

In light of the archetype, I'll shift my skill point from Heal over to Knowledge(geography), since the archetype will let me use my Knowledge(nature) in place of Heal checks.

I'll also likely purchase a ranged weapon since I was previously going to rely on bombs at range.

I left the orphanage at age 16 and began travrlling varisia. Did you come with me, stay at the orphanage or maybe get a job with the Sczarni as a burgler? Essentially, have we seen eachother in te last five years? I'm inclined to say no just because of the transient nature of Anton and the fact you are more of an urbanite.

Also, I didn't become aware that Lorrimor was my benefactor until now but he might have been visiting you regularly and observing me from afar, that's up to you though.

I've read everyones backstory now and can see why Jelani picked on the strength of writing, really well dveloped characters all round. Given that Anton always looks like a bit of a tramp with his patched up greatcoat and old leather hat, it'll be interesting to first meet Tibideau and B'yelka who are so pretty and perfect!